Merry Christmas - 12 Days and Counting

Christmas Eve - my favorite part of the Christmas season actually. Everything feels warm and cozy - though that could just be the new silk PJs from Victoria's Secret Danny gave me... hope he enjoys his Santa thong (I am obviously kidding).

I just want to wish everyone Merry Christmas and tell you all I have joy in my heart. It's Holden's first Christmas; and though he doesn't really 'get' it, I know he's gets it: unconditional love, relationships... he may not understand why we celebrate Christmas (and I don't mean because of the Christianization of Winter Solstice), but I think he can feel that something is different. At least I hope he can.

Dang that kid looks cute in his new PJs. And I am also excited to give our family their presents tomorrow... I always get way more excited about the ones I make.

Better go track Santa - he was in Connecticut last I checked.
www.noradsanta.org

11th Day of Christmas

Things I am feeling particularly good about -

• Most of my Christmas cards are out (or at least they will be postmarked out before Christmas) ha!
  
• My presents are mostly wrapped (ok I have one more to wrap for Danny's Grandma)
• We gave a few friends 'green' gifts (one of those green canvas bags with oranges and clementines with a message about how 100 billion bags are thrown away every year, etc). It felt good to have a soapbox in the the season...
  
• I made Holden a book for Christmas; and I am really excited for him to open it
• Most of our presents for family this year are made (that always puts me more in the mood for Christmas)
• I have really amazing friends
• The Chipmunks are playing in the background on Kozy 106.5
• I don't particularly care for Delilah*

*The other day I was listening to her and she said something about cuddling up all cozy-like at the fire place and then said 'You probably don't even have a fireplace. I've got three. I live in an old farm house and..." yada yada yada.. she starts going off about her three fireplaces? What a weirdo. I think I could do better.

Love songs with Delilah -- the other night she was talking about how she was divorced and marriage just didn;t work for her... is that weird to anyone else but me?

Back to the post at hand. I am also feeling good about:

• How Holden will just cuddle and snuggle up to me for no apparent reason
• Stoked that he appears to have completely weaned from the bottle (even at nighttime, we just fill a sippy cup with water if he needs something to wet his whistle)... it's been four days and four nights, so I think we're safe?!?!
  
• And that he's standing by himself for a few seconds and even took a couple of steps (ok, a step and a half?) today

I am nervous for him to walk... he needs to wait until his first birthday so I can be done pumping. I've mentioned it before, but that's another thing I'm looking forward to... I'm really happy to have 'nursed' Holden this long, but I won;t wish being a dairy cow...

He turns 11 months on January 1st. That is insanity...

What day of Christmas is it? (I've lost track....)

And on top of that, apparently TODAY was winter solstice? I am not even worthy to blog....

Happy Winter Solstice All! (9th Day of Christmas)

I love a solstice... don't really know why. But it sounds a heck of a lot cooler than Autumnal Equinox. (Actually Equinox, is a pretty cool word --isn't my CUV an equinox?)

But I still love Solstice. I'm sure if there were a car called Solstice it would be awesome.

So I just wanted to wish you a merry one -- it doesn't look so bleak outside today (although it's not even 2 pm yet.)

Holden's sleeping; Danny's leading singing time in the primary (such a good man)... the house is silent except for the rhythmic hum and dance from the water from the dishwasher. The sun is shining; and I've got chicken noodle soup on the stove with home made noodles drying on the counter top waiting for their big show.

Something about today just feels like perfection.

Namaste.


Wish I knew who to give the art credit to for the photo. But i found it here.

8th Day of Christmas -- Food Co-Op

Oh hello, how are you today? You are probably not reading blogs today because you are at Costco, with what I can only suppose is the rest of the valley -- eeek!


I almost had to go there and then I remembered that would be absolutely horrible!

Anyway - on the 8th day of Christmas, the universe gave to me:
a TOTAL SCORE FROM THE FOOD CO-OP, BABY!

So here is the list of the take home for today:
-1 lb lean ground beef (what am I going to do with that?!?!?)
-2 lbs chicken thighs
-1 lb pork spare ribs
-2 8oz. top sirloin steaks
-5 bananas
-6 apples
-4 clementines (oh, so cute!)
-1 head romaine lettuce
-1 bunch cauliflower
-3 green peppers
-2 avacados
- 3 lb. bag of yellow onions

PLUS, an artisan loaf of Stone Ground's wheat bread and 16 oz. of black beans.

I know I've talked about it before; but we get loads of food for such a smokin' deal. I kid you not, we only paid $23 for all of that stuff. I dare you to try and get that much food anywhere else! You'd have to coupon clip, visit 10 different stores or even (gasp!)... shop at WalMart (*ew, ew and double ew).

I heart the food co-op.

*Also, Danny wanted me to make sure to let everone know that he doesn't hate WalMart - they made a generous donation to Discovery Gateway (the Children's Museum). So he has a soft spot for them in his heart - even though he doesn't shop there. I say, even the devil can use good to do his dirty work. I'm just sayin'.

My Letter to Santa - Seventh Day

I'm sending this USPS later today, what do you think? I don't want to be too demanding, but I want to make sure Mr. Kringle knows I mean business.

*****

Dear Santa,

How have you been? As you know, I have been a very good girl this year (despite YOUR COMPLETE FAILURE at fulfilling my ONE and ONLY Christmas to be famous wish from last year.) But as you know I am a very forgiving individual and so instead of my request to be famous turning into the proverbial 'wish for a pony'... I've changed my tune.

This year - make me skinny.

There are many reasons to fulfill my grown up Christmas wish, but here are three key areas that make this a selfless request:

THE ENVIRONMENT
Skinny people are smaller and therefore use less resources. It won't take as much material to clothe me. Plus, I won't eat as much (because from what I can see, skinny people usually don't eat much).

MY SON
No one wants a chubby mommy. I mean sure, I'm great to snuggle up with. But I'm pretty sure Holden wants a mom who is cute and cool and youthful. And no one can be cool that is destined to live life in sweat suits because nothing else fits.

MY MARRIAGE
Really I'm doing it for my husband and in the name of building a better family. If I'm skinny, I'm more likely to 'be in the mood.' And for some reason, that makes my husband really happy.

So are you going to deliver, or what?!?!

Please hurry and make it so, or all these chocolate chip cookies I made for you will be gone before you get here.

Yours truly,
Sabrena

*****

PS. When I started this letter I was typing too fast for my fingers and accidentally wrote 'Dear Satan." Am I supposed to read anything into that?!?!

The Drummer from Def Lepard on my Solstice Tree -OR- 5th Day of Christmas

Since Little Bits loves to get into things, I figured this would be a good year to 'make' some of the decorations for our tree. I tried Gingerbread Men this year (that way, if Holden decides to eat the ornaments it's organic sugar and molasses.)

I think they turned out pretty good....
But there was a casualty:
A bigger spatula could've saved this one...

Rest in peace little man. You died as a martyr -- a very delicious martyr.

This is not a craft blog, but...

I decided that in the spirit of trying to have a more GREEN Christmas, I would re-purpose old magazines (most of which Holden has already ravage through) to wrap gifts.

Holden digs Elmo... or basically anything red. He doesn't watch Sesame Street, but he picked out that Elmo toilet seat AND the Earth's Best crackers with the red Muppet on the box.

So I figured he'd dig this:


Here's a sample of the library books we wrapped. We started a new Mangum Christmas tradition this year: 25 Christmas books in 25 days -- unwrap one each night (or two in one day if we miss a night for some reason or another.) I guess it's our advent calendar of sorts; but the 'gift a night' bit has been kind of like Hanukkah for Mormons. And since we don't have 25 Christmas books, we just borrowed a few from the grandparents and checked some out from the (government run, socialist neighborhood) Library. It's been fun. I even picked up 'The White Nights of Ramadan" to make sure we are appreciating other cultures. Now I just need to add one about Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, and of course: Hanukkah.

Tis the Season.

12 Days of Christmas - Day Deux

For your Holiday enjoyment (drum roll please.....) More Christmas Sweater Pics!!!!

Would you ever guess that this:

Came after this?

Or this?
Or this?!?!

Poor Danny... Holden decided he wanted to be down crawling (or somewhere else) every other time we tried to get pictures of the two of them together.

Favorite Holden moment of today:
Watching him rock-out to Sissel and the MoTab's Christmas Album.

Favorite Danny moment of the day:
Coming home from a church Messiah performance/fireside finding my husband had already parented Holden down for the night AND was making chocolate chip cookies with our nephew.


Life is Beautiful. . .

And to all a good night.

12 Days of Christmas (Christmas Card Letter #1)

On the first day of Christmas...
And so it begins again (remember last year's 12 Days of Christmas.)

Well, I started working on our Christmas cards today -- Danny helped. He's such a saint. And since I am behind deadline on writing the "suite family Christmas letter" (been my job since I was 12), I opted to leave out an official update on our mangum-family cards and give the blog address instead. Which means THIS is where I am going to post OUR MANGUM FAMILY CHRISTMAS LETTER!!!!

But I haven't actually decided what type of letter to write. I tend to be quite loquacious, as you all know, but I love it when I get ones (cards that is) from friends that highlight their families with three to five bullet points for each family member...

So I figured that would be a good start, eh?

So here we go:

danny

• working at zions bank as a SENIOR credit analyst
  
• fun & super helpful daddy
• looks great in argyle (sweater & socks)
  
• studying for the GMAT
• took his awesome wife to Boston for her birthday because that's the kind of guy he is

holden

• 10 months old - though and old soul (it's in his eyes)
  
• Six teeth, more on the way - but still hardly ever cries
• Loves his big boy bed (twin mattress on the floor) and will crawl into it for nap and bed time!
• Rocking the Baby Bjorn potty (we hardly ever clean poopy diapers - huzzah!)
  
• Saying goodbye to the bottle - only uses it with water at nighttime
  

sabrena

• trying to be all domestic and stuff
• trying to be a good mommy
• trying to be a good wife
• trying, trying, trying...
• And HALLELUJAH -- Ditching 'the pump' in less than two months!!!!!
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